So you think we are a finished article who should win the title?
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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Yes Ole has to do some work and he is not free of any blames. But the overreaction after every dropped points here is weird. If we at the end of the season are fighting for 4th place and much behind the leaders then I will criticize him but not now. We should have probably won this game as the cavani's miss was probably miss of the season for us in the league.
For a long while I assumed the 4-2-3-1/double pivot/Bruno has-to-create-everything system was out of necessity and the team would eventually evolve into something more sophisticated but now I really do wonder is this it? Is this the extent of Ole's vision for the team? Bit worrying if it is tbh even if he has done a good job in some aspects.
Melty way fan flare up after every dropped point.
We all know we aren't showing enough up front........the manager said the same.
We literally dropped 4 points and you coming across like you losing it.
For your city point. They on form at the moment but they just beat Sheffield United 1 nil. Their team also for last 4 years been miles ahead of us. I wouldn't be measuring us against them as a barometer against Ole.
Looking at the table looking like their defo 4 teams ahead of the rest and we are 2nd. I'm hoping our forwArds hit the form they did end of last season as let's be honest they've been off the boil most of the season and we are sitting 2nd.
It's not a time to be losing minds and talking sh#t about the manager to win some online argument.
Had 2 free ones tonight.
Been saying it since he got signed he not a starter. But then again the competition is martial and he fell of a cliff...........unbalanced big time up front because of options. Not even 6 months we were one of the most deadliest front 3s about.
Tell me what has he done wrong in tactic today? Don’t just blindly put some blame, because this is what you lot are doing.
I disagree. Cedric has been very good in his last three games before this match, the performance he showed in those games including today was as good as tierney and the performance that Pepe showed today was as good as Saka showed this season.
Those two are not the only cases I can prove it to you, take a look Gabriel. Gabriel who was supposed to be one of their best player this season and the fans highly rated him been on the bench recently because he’s replaceable by the likes of Luiz or Pablo Mari. If he’s not on the bench, you lot will use it as an excuse to say ‘’Gabriel was a big miss’’. In reality, lot of their players are replaceable. Only Partey and Laca in my opinion are irreplaceable in their team.
I won't surprise that we start losing and dropping points like the start of the season. That's what we get with Ole. We win with individual brilliance and lose/draw when players are found missing. City has a system where they win break teams down and they will keep doing it the whole 90 mins regardless who is playing. Sadly, that's the key difference between City or Liverpool versus Utd. Ole is building a team of individuals who can win games. Lampard has been sack doing the same things. If Tuchel can come in and Chelsea start climbing the table. We would have miss another great manager to hire. With Ole, we might win a cup or 2 but will never win a title.
just not good enough. Here are out results against the other traditional 5 top teams
Arsenal: 1-0 defeat at home and 1-1 draw away = 1 point
Liverpool: 0-0 draw away = 1 point
Chelsea: 0-0 draw at home = 1 point
Man City: 0-0 draw at home = 1 point
Spurs: 6-1 defeat at home = 0 Points
6 games for 4 points out of 18. Pathetic.
Arsenal: 1-0 defeat at home and 1-1 draw away = 1 point
Liverpool: 0-0 draw away = 1 point
Chelsea: 0-0 draw at home = 1 point
Man City: 0-0 draw at home = 1 point
Spurs: 6-1 defeat at home = 0 Points
6 games for 4 points out of 18. Pathetic.
Rashford would do better playing for Guardiola
It's really not that simple. Just compare the average xg for games between City and ourselves. There's a reason our goals have dried up when the individual brilliance has, whereas City continue to dominate.
You make your own luck when you pepper the opposition goals.
Also we are not in a 'title race', if you genuinely believe we look on the same level as a City side on a 12 game win streak, playing far better than us, with their best players yet to come back - not to add with a potential 6 point lead, you're far more confident in this team and management than I am.
Also noone is claiming this team is the finished article - I notice that is a trait with a lot of the fans trying to defend Ole on here - the issue isn't that the team isn't finished, we understand it can take a few years to win a title. What we need to see to be confident in the project is 1. A sure-fire approach to the game and 2. A steady improvement to said approach. Under Ole, despite being here 3 years, you could argue that we've maybe slightly improved as a counter attacking outfit and that's about it. Is that not worrying to you? And im not even sure how much of that is down to him or simply just having better players.
Is it not cause for concern that teams and managers with far less resources are getting more out of their players? Playing better football? That despite 3 years of management our players still look clueless when playing together, that our goals only seem to come from moments of magic? Does it not worry you that now thay Bruno's unsustainable productivity has waned a little, we are now struggling to score? How about the fact that we have a very good away record, because we can only really play football when teams come onto us, affording heaps of space, but have a shite home record because the difficult to coach aspects of the game like movement and attacking combinations in tight areas is something we look clueless in?
I have seen more than enough to know he will never have the coaching acumen to get us to the top and that is no slight on him. He's very clearly a very good man manager but from a coaching perspective - the level in Europe and in particular the prem is just far too high imo.
You're right it does take time to build the finished article, but it doesn't take 3 years to start seeing signs of players actually improving in a visible system
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He was okay, like better than he normally is but he certainly wasn't the Saka of recently who's basically been running games on his own. Make no mistake about it, it's huge that we didn't face Saka today and played against Pepe instead. Also that rating thing has Rashford at 6.7 making it automatically nonsense. Rashford was voted a 3.2 on here.7.2 was his rating.
And i would still agree to that.........i don't care if our coach is a club legend or for example Steven Gerrard......i want a coach either for trophies or a clear improvement in our game and Solskjaer has done nothing of this in his 25 months here.
The Martial Pass to Shaw with a quick whipped cross to Cavani before Cavani misses shows that the fans have their favourites at United that hardly get blame.
He had piss easy chances and we end up blaming Ole. Okay.
He had piss easy chances and we end up blaming Ole. Okay.
oh here we go. we had a couple of poor results and suddenly all the hyperbolic comments and criticisms are back. We created bigger chances and should have taken at least of 1 of them. I agree that ole should have made the subs sooner but he already had his so called best team out there so i guess he was just waiting to see if the team can create 1 more big chance. We just desperately need a right winger because at the moment we dont have a competent right sided attacker.
Saka was 6.9 when he played at Old Trafford this season.I have said it, this is the same case as Gabriel that I made. Gabriel has been one of arsenal best player this season and he’s on the bench because in reality he’s replaceable because Luiz or Pablo Mari are capable to put the same performance. The same with saka and Pepe. What saka did is impressive for his age not because he performed like PL 20/21 best player, it’s something someone that cost 70m like Pepe should be able to do.
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It was not a bad game. It was away to Arsenal. They may not be the Arsenal of old but they are not a bad side at all. It’s definitely an improvement from the Sheffield Utd game. I give credit to Ole for this. Now let’s keep improving.
Ole can't finish chances for the team. That said, we'd have won even if it was the 50yr old Ole with those chances that Cavani & Co fluffed.
What we’ll do is we’ll ask our resident gooner. If Pepe can produce what Saka has been producing ..
I have said it, this is the same case as Gabriel that I made. Gabriel has been one of arsenal best player this season and he’s on the bench because in reality he’s replaceable because Luiz or Pablo Mari are capable to put the same performance. The same with saka and Pepe. What saka did is impressive for his age not because he performed like PL 20/21 best player, it’s something someone that cost 70m like Pepe should be able to do.
@Grinner
In the meantime while waiting we can go back to talk about Ole which something relevant to this thread, what Ole did wrong in his tactic in this match?
It's just over two years since he was appointed caretaker, not three.
Apologies, point still stands
Point doesn’t stand because yesterday was another away game and we didn’t play counter but we actually play football. The manager’s approach was right against arsenal. Players didn’t take the chances when we created enough. You lot keep blaming the manager for yesterday game without any tactical explanation what he had done wrong tactically in that game.
Quality of football definitely has improved. You can say all you like about how we go behind in games where we should be cruising, but the point is there aren't a lot of games where I feel that we won't create enough chances to score atleast 1-2 goals. Even this season, since the October international break, I think SHU, Arsenal(H) and City games apart, I think we created enough in other games to score 2-3 or atleast win the game by atleast 1 goal (like the Chelsea game).
And I'm not sure of why this Bruno argument comes into the picture everytime. Wasn't it Ole who signed him? It's Ole/his coaching team that is deciding the sytsem that we'll play and that is clearly bringing out the best of Bruno. I mean, I'm more than certain no one expected him to bring his Portuguese league numbers to the PL, but he's done that, and you need to credit the manager for that as well.
Improvements in facets of game- We've turned around how we play the game by 180 degrees under Ole, and still remained competitive. How is that not an achievement. Some of our plays have been absolute slick and our passing is much better now under pressure. Think of the best team goals that we've scored in the last decade and I'm certain, nearly all if not all would have been under Ole (maybe except Martial vs Stoke).
I think last 3-4 seasons have really changed people's perception of what a champion team plays like. In most cases teams winning the PL have had a xG of ~2goals a game. Since Oct international break our xG/game has been 1.75. It's not PL winning worthy but it definitely isn't terrible. Hell, it's the 3rd best in the league since October, so not sure what the issue is here. Hell, if I'm looking at every game this season, I think apart from BHA and arguably WHU game, we haven't gained a single point through pure luck. Conversely, I'd say we deserved all 3 yesterday and vs Leicester
We were shite. Created arguably two proper goal scoring chances against a weakened, average Arsenal side.
If thats an acceptable performance for you, so be it.
What about every opportunity that Rashford had? In fact one of them he had point blank to shoot toward the goal but chose to playing around in the box so not just two proper chances, we had plenty. These performance down to players not manager, if you are going to blame manager talk more tactically and answer the question, what has he done wrong tactically in that game?
He needs to go back to the tactical board and adjust the attack against sides that are flooding the middle of the pitch like Sheffield and Arsenal. It’s part of the evolution, maybe draw Bruno wider so he can get more time and space on the ball, let Fred and McTominay cover for the fullbacks and push them further up the pitch etc.
The team was on an incredible run, no one expected them to win out the rest of the season. They’ll go on a run again sooner than later.
The team was on an incredible run, no one expected them to win out the rest of the season. They’ll go on a run again sooner than later.
Everyone would.
What are the people supposed to do then? Stay calm and enjoy being dogshite against the worst team in the league while being nullified again by a midtable team yesterday? It's not just the results, we struggle to consistently roll over teams because we have outdated view of football. I can agree that yesterday wasn't our worst performance but I don't know it's not good enough again if we ever want to be any close to the title race. Just because City and Liverpool this season are not that far ahead and it's closer than ever we should not be content with how we play. It's not like Solskajer is here for his first few month and teaching his team how he wants to play. I really wonder why and what all the guys around him really do there. McKenna, Carrick, Phelan. I see no improvement in some parts of our game at all, just send the lads on the pitch and hope they are gonna perform today...
With this kind of form we drop even deeper and those who talked about the title race will be in shock. Luckily for us there is not a strong top4 team this year, so we will make it and it will be talked about as success. We are not Arsenal ffs.
Pepe probably had one of his best games in an Arsenal shirt yesterday but it was more to do with actually putting in a proper shift closing us down than it was to do with his play making. The reason Arsenal have been improving lately is because of the linkup play between Saka and Smith-Rowe. I'm 100% positive if you ask any Arsenal supporter who'd they prefer between Saka and Pepe the vast majority would pick Saka.
I can't see how you think Cedric is a better player than Tierney attack wise or defence wise but I guess it's a personal opinion which we're all entitled too.
I actually don't rate Gabriel all that much which is why I didn't mention him. From what I've seen of Arsenal for me Pablo Mari looks more comfortable in that position. Admittedly I haven't seen all of Arsenal's games because lately their style of play bores the tats of me but I have seen enough to judge that Partey and Laca are far from the only 2 indispensables.
Agree on the attack. You have to wonder whether we have the right coaches in place. Ferguson hired Mulensteen specifically to coach skills and attacking play. Could we bring him back, or find someone similar?
Pepe played against Southampton in midweek and he performed good. So his good performance wasn’t just down to us. I never say Cedric is a better player, I said Cedric performance recently shows that Tierney wasn’t big loss. I could agree with tierney could be considered as loss but I don’t think just for today‘s game he will make arsenal wins the game based on what Cedric has shown.
The reality is that Gabriel has been one of arsenal best player just like saka based on performance and clearly when they are not on the pitch, there are others capable to fill the hole. While there are no other arsenal players are capable to fill what Partey and Laca brings into table if they are not on the pitch, put it simple because Elneny & Nketiah are average to replace them.
It’s down to players at the end in term of performance not manager today. What has manager done wrong tactically in that game?
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Lack of width is certainly hurting us. I don't like to pin too much hope on untried youngsters but I think it's time to introduce Diallo. Not necessarily in the hope that he'll immediately start winning us games but if he can stretch play and show trickery out wide it will open up more space for Pogba and Bruno centrally. Even Shaw on the opposite flank is a victim of the non-existent right side because opponents know he's the only one they need to neutralise of our wide players.
After we drew against Liverpool when everyone was fine with the result he said the performance was disappointing. I liked that. If we're going into pointless comments then that's to be noted that as well.
The games we should be looking at are the one in Turkey that in the end went towards us getting knocked out of the CL and last weeks game against Sheffield United. What was the preparation like? Why was the attitude so bad, maybe these players need reminding that if you go out with a lackadaisical attitude you might just get beaten. Yesterday I would have been quite happy to get a draw if not for the previous game. Do they not train as hard if they think it is an easy game in their eyes?
Ok, fair points on the arsenal players. Elneny is one of those players that make you think, how is he a PL player?
While Cavani should of scored at least 1 there's very small margins where the manager is concerned and personally I think he got some big calls wrong.
It was obvious McT was suffering badly and should of been off before he practically substituted himself by collapsing to the ground. If he had obvious symptoms before the game why was he played?
Bringing on Martial and moving Pogba to the middle was another obvious mistake. Pogba was playing well before being moved and it showed in the second half. I know it's easy for armchair supporters to criticise but why move a player from a position he favours and is at his most effective to one where he struggles when we could of left him there and brought on Matic or VDB?
Arsenal were targeting AWB who I thought had a very good game but Rashford wasn't helping him out which should have been rectified by the manager.
I love Bruno as a player but yesterday he was lucky to stay on the pitch and should of been taken off around the hour mark. The same as Rashford who was probably having one of his worst games in a United shirt. Ole has a bad habit of bringing on players in the last 10 minutes if we're trying to get something out of the game which doesn't give the incoming player much time to adjust to the pace of the game.
The last minutes of the game it looked like we were happy with the draw the way we were playing around with the ball at the back. This probably irked me more than anything. 1 point away to Arsenal on paper isn't a bad result but they were there for the taking and this attitude of rather not losing than going for the win belongs in midtable clubs. It's small time mentality.
Although I believe we set up too defensively in these 'big' games, we had plenty of chances to put the game to bed yesterday. Maybe because we would find ourselves defending for 10 minutes and then pop up with a goal scoring opportunity, it led us to snatching at chances.
Ole can't take the chances for us, although I would have preferred for Greenwood to come on over Martial yesterday so we had the Shaw/Rashford link on the left.
Ole can't take the chances for us, although I would have preferred for Greenwood to come on over Martial yesterday so we had the Shaw/Rashford link on the left.
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